About Our Guest- Dr. Todd Ovokaitys- Stem Cells, Lasers, and Reversing Biological Age
Dr. Todd was first in his class in High School and at Northwestern University and was accepted after 2 years of college to the premiere program at Johns Hopkins Medical School. He then did further training at Georgetown in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary and Intensive Care Medicine.
He has become a leader in laser biophysics research and has developed a stem cell protocol that has reversed biological age at the DNA level more than any other method in medical history. He has been granted multiple patents in stem cells, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, and even agriculture.
He also composes chorale and instrumental symphonic pieces. The transcendental choirs he has created and produced all around the world, with up to 900+ choristers, rejuvenate the body while immensely boosting personal vibrational and awareness states. The combination of the biomedical and esoteric reflect his passion for the full exploration and expansion of human potential.
Full Podcast Transcription
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 00:00
No matter how old someone is, their B cells are going to be much, much younger than they are, even a newborn level at almost any age, when they’re given intravenously, we can also use the new type of laser signal that goes a lot more deep tissue to give them a homing pathway to increase the probability that a stem cell goes where a person that most use the regenerative benefit.
Diva Nagula 00:32
Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of From Doctor to Patient. Today, I have a really special guest with me Dr. Todd Ovokaitys. He was first in his class in high school and at Northwestern University and was accepted after two years of college to the premier program at Johns Hopkins Medical School. He then did further training at Georgetown in internal medicine, and pulmonary and intensive medicine. He has become a leader in laser biophysics research and has developed a stem cell protocol that has reverse biological age at the DNA level, more than any other method in medical history. He’s been granted multiple patents in stem cells, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals and even agriculture. He also composes chorale and instrumental symphonic pieces to transcendental choir. He has created and produced all around the world with up to 900 plus coursers rejuvenate the body, while immensely boosting personal vibration and awareness states. A combination of the medical, biomedical and esoteric reflect his passion for the full exploration and expansion of the human potential. Dr. Todd, how are you today?
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 01:59 I’m great, how are you?
Diva Nagula 02:01
Fantastic. I’m really happy that you were able to take the time to be on the show today. I’m excited to talk to you about what we have in store for the listeners. But I really want to take a few minutes and just kind of get a little bit of background about you. I know you have such incredible knowledge and vast experience in the field of the quantum research and laser technology. I think you even won some sort of a science award when you’re younger, developing a laser. So let’s speak about that if you may.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 02:39
Sure. The backstory is that ever since I was 13, I basically fell in love with DNA. And even before that, when I was eight, I fell in love with lasers. And when I was 10, I built my first magnetically driven Quantum Time Machine actually had some efficacy for doing what we intended it to do. So my interest in these things goes back quite a while. So the love of lasers came first. And that has been reflected in the work that we’re doing on various fronts with laser biophysics. And it was really landmark when I was in eighth grade that I really fell in love with DNA. And in my own self study was learning and reading everything I could about it. Because even then I had the insight that if we understood DNA well enough, we could unlock the codes for reversing any condition as well as for biological rejuvenation keeping us young. So that’s where it all began. And I’d say my pursuit of medical training at Johns Hopkins University and medical school was largely driven by my interest in keeping the doors open to be able to do almost anything in the realm of DNA. With that passion and interest I went through a decade of medical training a five year program at Hopkins which was called the two five program which was an accelerator program, that I was one of 26 people in America, that got into that year, which was amazing was an incredible way to be with world luminaries in any areas. We got to do tutorials with famous figures at Hopkins as part of that experience. And then the full formal year, formal medical training, followed by internship, residency, chief residency, as well as a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care at Georgetown University. So I spend quite a lot of time at great academic institutions, learning, the core current art of medicine, and all that it can do, as well as experiencing its limitations. And it was really towards the end of my training when I was a fellow in pulmonary medicine. And at that time, I was doing a lot of procedures on persons with AIDS. And one of the things a pulmonary doctor does is something called a bronchoscopy, you actually pass, it’s kind of weird, actually, they pass a narrow tube through somebody’s nose, down their throat through their vocal cords, and you can explore the different segments of the lung. And with AIDS and pneumonia, unlike other people, if they get pneumonia, it’s usually caused by a single thing. With AIDS, it can be caused by five different things at once. And many different things. It can be bacterial, viral, parasitic, protozoa, various types of malignancies, that can all happen at the same time because of the immune compromised. So in that circumstance, we actually had to do invasive procedures with bronchial washings and trans-bronchial biopsies, and was in the middle of that, I thought there was really got to be a better way. And the initial antiretroviral drugs had been developed them. And their mechanism was broken such a fundamental level of human biochemistry, that I realized that they would tend to be toxic. And that proved to be the case. And a simple idea came to mind, which is based on one of the most fundamental concepts in physics, which is the concept that everything vibrates. And the way a thing vibrates is a function of what it’s made of, and its structure and geometry. And if you ring an object, as it were, to see how it will vibrate, that actual vibrational mode is called its natural frequency. And that can be true of a tiny object, or a skyscraper, or even a bridge. There is this amazing footage you might have seen where there were winds gusting at the natural frequency of the bridge, and it began to start moving in a sine wave. And their cars kind of rolling along this moving bridge and finally the cars got off, because in time, the bridge actually collapsed, which is a function of this concept of resonance, where if a system tends to vibrate at a certain frequency, even small inputs of energy, that are timed with that frequency will build energy in the system. And that can either build energy in a way that it organizes to a higher level of structure and function and activity, or it can be over driven and cause the system simply to shatter. Like those famous scenes where an opera singer hits a certain note and a crystal wine glass shatters. We looked at that, in terms of what that meant for biological effects. So the insight I had as I’m doing bronchoscopys all hours of the day, even in the ICU, at Georgetown, was this insight into natural frequency. And it was just an intuition that the three dimensional structure of the nucleic acid of HIV would somehow be different in its configuration and geometry, then human nucleic acid and if there is a difference in structure in geometry, based on the concept of natural frequency, that there will be a differential frequency. And in theory, one could use the frequency of this system you wanted to disrupt, the frequency of the virus, if you could find the differential and literally just overdrive it till it simply broke up and disappeared from the body. So that was where the concept began. Is it possible to define a natural frequency that is differential for a virus, then for human nucleic acid. It didn’t happen overnight. There was a lot of research to do with various ingenious scientists who looked at what you could call electro medicine and frequency medicine. So to find the frequency characteristics that could be applied to the body that would have very beneficial effects. So that was the precedent work. And ultimately, after four years, the way to apply frequency in an effective way that could go deeply through the body was engineering, a new type of laser technology. And what’s relevant about this new type of technology that’s different from all the other lasers that are out there. And just like, all stem cells aren’t the same, which we may discuss later, all lasers are not the same. And if we look at lasers in the visible wavelength, their depth of penetration is limited to two to three millimeters at the high frequency blue violet end, and about four to five millimeters at the orange red end of the spectrum. So it’s not very far. So the coherence of the penetration is very limited. For various technical factors that are probably beyond the scope of this discussion, we might get a group of really interested people in a Blackboard and go into the deeper quantum details of how all that works. For now suffice to say that there is intense scattering of a laser signal at the surface of a medium unless you create a different type of waveform. And the hallmark of our discovery was working with a super smart Scottish physicist named Scott Strachan, who was the only person the only scientist I talked to that said, my idea was impossible, he made it much better at just highly improbable, yet mathematically, highly improbable, is infinitely better than impossible. And in just six weeks, he he went from that improbability to reducing to practice and optical device that creates a new type of laser waveform. And it alters the wave relationships in such a way that some of the ways form pairs that are exactly out of phase and sum the electric and magnetic fields to zero. So you have two photons that now have no net electric or magnetic field, don’t show up on a power meter, and in theory have a depth of penetration that can go as much as 100,000 times more though a medium than ordinary laser.
Diva Nagula 12:55 Wow.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 12:57
And that makes it possible for that signal, in particular, to be able to create a non heating vibrational energy that gives a signal from one side of the body to the other along whatever axis you direct the beam. That is the main difference between the types of lasers we have created, which really get into the realm of something called dynamic phase conjugate waves. Because the waveforms do something very interesting, even with the flow of time and space, or a vector sum zero wave. And the core idea is that when there’s no net electrical magnetic field, the interaction with matter changes. The reason a photon absorbs into an outer electron in an atom is because there’s an electromagnetic field of the photon and a strong negative charge of the electron. And that is how they attract and interact and an electron will absorb a photon, go to a higher energy state and then re emitted at some time later. If there’s no net electrical magnetic field, the electron cloud doesn’t see it. And at least according to the theoretical physics, the interaction, if any will be with the nucleus. And at least based on our current atomic model, the radius of the nucleus is only 1/100000 that of the radius of the entire atom. So the ability to get a signal through tissue and to have a different type of waveform energy, that can alter the alignments of the flux of so called virtual particles in space and to engineer the shape and structure and function of space time is novel with this type of waveform configuration. So this is not like any other laser, it is quite a lot different technically with response to how far it can go through a medium. And the way it may be able to use the natural frequency of a particular molecular system. And, using that, alter the energy shape structure and function of a particular system in the way that can be engineered by the way the frequencies are used.
Diva Nagula 15:35
And you’re able to achieve this, with such low power, and that’s the beauty of the laser that you have that you use along with optics, correct. I mean, there’s so many lasers that are out there that have such high intense power. But by using that type of a laser on the body, you can actually have tissue damage. And with this particular case, it’s so powerful without utilizing a whole lot of power.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 16:01
Right. When we talk about lasers, we speak about two things, or three things really, we have a frequency. That is how fast is the photon oscillating in space, because across the electromagnetic spectrum, the main difference is the frequency of the wave. So radio waves are really long, and the energy and they pass through things. infrared waves are more deeply penetrating then visible waves, and they tend to warm the tissue and often very high levels of power are used. And visible waves have their own characteristics, those are things that we can see. And there are different attributes actually of what the waves do in terms of the so called photobiomodulation, which means that different frequencies will interact with molecules depending upon the absorption spectrum of those molecules. So what differs with an electromagnetic wave at the first level is simply the frequency. So at the high frequency end of the visible spectrum, we have violet at the low frequency end we have red. And once you get to violet pushing towards ultraviolet, you have the risk of ionizing radiation. So we definitely, at least for general, therapeutic purposes, don’t want to go below the violet, because then we can actually create a type of energy that could harm the tissue. And you do have to be more careful as you get into the lower frequencies across the spectrum. So the first thing you have is the frequency, which also determines, in the visible spectrum that we can see, what the color is high frequency and is blue/violet low frequency end is orange/red, then you have the power level. So power is usually measured in the units of watts. And if you get back to your physics of what is a joule per second, lower power lasers talk in terms of milli watts or 1000s of watts. And the system that we use is only five milliwatts, which is about the amount of power in a red laser pointer. And the other factor that occurs in terms of laser tissue interactions, besides the total power of the beam is the width of the beam. And that is, overall how wide an area do you diffuse that power. And that’s described as the power density. So you can have a two millimeter beam that can heat the tissue. But if you widen that to a 20 or 25 millimeter beam, you’ve diffused the energy so much that the likelihood of heating or harming anything is very small. So back to the point. All lasers are not the same. lasers that go past about five milliwatts go into a higher classification rating. And if you get into class four, which are powerful lasers, that can be even a full watt or more. And a watt is 1000 milliwatts. There, there is enough actual power that you can overheat and actually injure something. So all lasers are not the same. The frequency and invisible spectrums that directly defines the color. The power output of the laser, and the width of the beam are all factors that relate to the safety and applicability of the system.
Diva Nagula 19:56
And specifically with this laser What is the frequency of light that is being used?
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 20:03
We work with red light at 674 nanometers, which is a type of gentle wavelength, it’s not ionizing radiation. And the total power is roughly akin to a laser pointer. And a laser pointer is actually pretty tight beam, it’s a few millimeters, and we expand the beam to about 25 millimeters. So the relatively low power is spread over wide area. And when the system was calibrated properly, we found it safe even for the eye.
Diva Nagula 20:38
And then you are able to achieve depths where the laser can go through the body with this
particular optics, along with the setup and frequency of light and the power.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 20:52
The process that we use, is really creating a directional signal for creating desirable effects in tissue. And our discussion will slip into the regenerative medicine arena. And using the power of different types of regenerative cells, particularly different types of stem cells, becomes irrelevant. As one of the biggest issues in regenerative medicine is if you have a cell that can regenerate something, it’s not really going to do what you want unless you can actually get the cell to go there and adhere there. And then it can regenerate there.
Diva Nagula 21:41
Exactly, and this would be a great transition as we had a lot of good information that we just shared about the technical aspect of a laser. Since we are talking about regenerative medicine, specifically stem cells, I’d love for you to just review the germ layers, stem cells, the benefits, why would someone go through a process of getting stem cells done? What does it do for the body? And let’s start with that first before we go into specifics, and regarding the procedure that you do.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 22:15
Well, that question would warrant a whole weekend seminar. I’m happy to address it, I’ll aim to summarize it in a way that makes the landscape clear. And I believe one of the biggest challenges when we talk about regenerative medicine is that the menu is so big, with all the adjuncts that can be used, that it can be a bit challenging to sort through the landscape and decide from this big menu, what is the best fit for a particular person with a given intention of the benefit that they’re looking for? And I’ll begin from the beginning. And the overarching concept is that while stem cells are presented, as though it’s one kind of thing, because much of the discussion, particularly the way it’s promoted, doesn’t really suggest that there are many types of stem cells that do many different types of things that have many different types of properties. And that there can be an organized thought process for defining what type of stem cell prepared in what way delivered in what way may be likely to give the optimum outcome for a given issue. So with that, I’ll begin at the beginning. When you have the fertilization event, and you have literally the first cell of the body that begins to replicate. And when it gets to about the 30 cell stage, it’s called a blastocyst. And the cells in that little ball are called totipotent. And these are the true embryonic stem cells. And there needs to be a distinction of what a true embryonic stem cell is from other types of stem cells. A totipotent cell means it’s all powerful, which means that if you separated those 30 cells and put it in 30, ready wombs, you could create 30 new people. So a totipotent cell is so powerful, it can literally create a whole new person. The drawback of that is that true embryonic stem cells because they’re so powerful have been shown to have a potential complication. And that is forming a benign tumor called a teratoma. They’re benign tumors, so it’s a lot better than being an invasive malignant tumor. And that said, it’s still not great having big growths in the body where you don’t want to. And what’s unique and bizarre about a teratoma given that it’s coming from a cell that can make everything as that these are a mass of cells that can differentiate all the different tissues. So at the extreme end, it can be a giant cantaloupe sized hairball with skin and teeth and muscle and nails and cartilage and bone and blood vessels.
Diva Nagula 26:00 So pretty.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 26:13
Yeah, it’s something that may require surgery if it gets too big or in the wrong location. And the true embryonic stem cells are something that we avoid, because of that potential complication. Now, eventually, there may be ways that they can be somehow modulated or moderated or cytokine supplied in some way, or prepared in a certain way that risk is diminished or eliminated. It at present, that that is a known risk, whether it’s working people or in laboratory animal experiments. This is something that I’ve even been asked to address by research colleagues, might there be some way we can use our platform to minimize that risk? So it’s a key question. So while embryonic stem cells, have been used in certain instances, and in some cases, can give pretty dramatic results because they’re powerful. It’s still a double edged sword. And the next step along the way, is much safer, and can probably be comparably powerful, yet in an organized way that doesn’t create giant cantalope sized hairballs. Just pass totipotent, we have what is called pluripotent. So totimeans everything, it can literally make a whole new person. Pluri means many, and a pluripotent stem cell has the attribute that it can generate any of the three primary germ layers. So after this blastocyst stage, that’s in little ball of cells, the developing embryo evolves into three different derm layers, which are called endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm. And each derm layer has the attribute that will make certain types of tissues. So the ectoderm is very important because that generates, for example, the whole central nervous system, the teeth, and the skin, sort of like the outside packaging and the nervous system to connect everything. The mesoderm is about the key structural elements. So that makes bone and muscle and tendons and ligaments and cartilage and also fat. Then you have endoderm, which is largely involved with the digestive organ, so stomach, liver, intestines, and so forth. Every tissue in the body has a particular germ layer origin to it. The potency of the pluripotent stem cells is that at that level, B cells can form any of the three germ layers and then any of the types of cells from the three germ layers. So, at least in the biological understanding, a pluripotent stem cell could regenerate or replicate or replace any type of cell in the body if placed in the right conditions.
Diva Nagula 29:47
And this is important compared to what is currently done, when there are cells derived from fat
and bone marrow.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 29:56
Exactly. Which gets to the next level of the discussion. After pluripotent. The next level moving down the differentiation pathway is germ layer derived. So does it come from the endoderm, mesoderm, or ectoderm, for example. And in popular practice, what’s really been focused on is cells derived from the mesoderm layer. And this gets the general name of so called mesenchymal stem cells. And, in practice, these are most commonly derived from somebody’s fat. MSCs can also be derived from bone marrow. And if you get into the concept of cord blood, and then there are a whole other set of issues that come up with that, at least in terms of understanding that they’re MSCs, mesenchymal stem cells from different sources. And what’s important is that mesenchymal stem cells like to be driven along their natural light. So mesenchymal stem cells are inclined to build cartilage, bone, tendon, ligaments, and even fat. So the most typical source is fat, because it’s easy to harvest. People mostly want to have less of it on their body. And there is a process that requires digesting the fat usually with enzymes, and then separating and concentrating the mesenchymal stem cells from it. And you then have the issues of well, how good is that particular lab’s procedures for doing that process, because you’re not cleanly extracting the type of cell that you want, you have to digest the tissue separating concentrate the cells that you’re using. And MSCs used for their intended target tissues can have some really great effects. So if someone’s factorized MSCs, are placed into a joint for someone who has a cartilage or ligament issue, then those are the right type of cell in the right person, because it comes from them, which is called autologous, cells that are given back to the same person, then there can be a good chance of the cells adhering and being given the signals to become replacement cartilage, or to fortify or strengthen a tendon or ligament. If mesenchymal stem cells are used to try to regenerate something outside of their germline of origin, they really have to be forced to it. And they may not willingly go in that direction. But sometimes there can be good results depending upon the circumstance. For example, if one wants to cause a neurologic regenerative effect, then there could be a movement in that direction from the cytokines and growth factors that the cells make. Yet, the cells won’t likely be replacement cells for that tissue. There are times where the MSCs are really great. And there are times where they may not function as well. One of the things that happens with the MSCs is that they age like all the other tissues. And if one is using someone’s fat derived MSCs, to regenerate and improve the function of a joint space, then the result can be great. So a young person’s MSCs applied to a tissue that the MSDS are already designed to regenerate into can be a very good result. The challenge is that as a person gets older, the MSCs become less functional. So if it’s an 80 year old and the goal is to regenerate those mesodermal structures. The results may not be very strong. So there is an age related or aging related function where the cells tend to be less effective. And I say, aging related because I think, especially with our work, we’re getting out of this concept of being concerned about someone’s birthday, but really focusing on what is the true biological age of their tissues, because we operate and function with respect to our biological age, much more than our chronological age. But more on that later. The other limitation of MSCs is that they’re very big. So the typical size of a factorized, mesenchymal stem cell is about 12 to 30 microns. And that’s very little. However, if you look at the utility of giving mesenchymal stem cells IV, with the hope of regenerating a particular tissue or organ, the limiting factor is that when things are delivered IV, the first place it goes is the right side of the heart, though the right ventricle, to the pulmonary artery, and then to the pulmonary capillary circulation. And the average diameter of the pulmonary capillaries is only about six microns. So it’s simple mechanics, it’s hard to squeeze a 12 to 30 micron ball, through a six micron tube. Which means that the vast majority, and I think studies have shown typically, well overnight in 95% of those cells simply get trapped in the lung. Now there can be utility. These cells are like a type of internal Pharmacopoeia that makes a constellation of growth factors and regeneration factors and benevolence cytokines, that can exert a positive regenerative effect. And what’s important to note is that they only last so long, functionally. In that regard. I believe many people think it’s on the order of four to six weeks, especially if it’s not from the person, that is the stated figure for allogeneic MSCs, if they come from another person, which is a whole different issue, those are generally known to last for about four to six weeks, and then then the effect diminishes, but there can be a benefit from what they’re producing during that time, they may last longer if it’s from the same person, and they may assist to actually provide regeneration in the lung itself, because that’s where they go. However, if the goal is to get them to any other tissue effectively, then they’re not likely to be as robust for that purpose. Beyond that, beyond the germ layer derived stem cells, we have single tissue stem cells, targeted just for a particular tissue. And it may not be generally known that virtually every tissue in the body has its own type of stem cell. There’s a liver stem cell, the muscle stem cell. In the brain, there are actually three different types of neural stem cells. There’s another type in the spinal cord. Even the skin has stem cells. And I’ll quiz you, where do those live?
Diva Nagula 38:56 The skin.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 38:57
Yeah. What structure of the skin harbours the skin stem cells?
Diva Nagula 39:03
I’m going to guess the dermis.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 39:07
Not precisely what stated structure in the skin. The dermis is general, but more specifically?
Diva Nagula 39:17 The epithelial layer.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 39:19 They reside in the hair follicle.
Diva Nagula 39:22
Interesting, I would have not guessed that and I didn’t.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 39:30
So, ultimately, for certain purposes, it may be possible to derive and use the specific and Oregon type of stem cell but that’s a more advanced research concept and it may take a while to do yet, that gives you an idea of the landscape of the stem cell system. And there are a lot more details we could fill in for all the different types of stem cells that are known, but that gives you the basic architecture. You start with totipotent single cells are incredibly powerful in a single cell thing, create a whole new person, that because they’re so robust, they can actually create a risk for benign tumor formation. It’s also important to note that once you get past todibo, into pluripotent, the risk of teratoma has already been shown to no longer be present. And pluripotent stem cells, in a sense would be the most versatile, because they can make any of the three germ layer tissues and then any of the cells of the body.
Diva Nagula 40:36
Where do the cord cells, where do they fall in the germ layer? You know, everyone who has children has been told that it’s best to bank those cells.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 40:47
That is a much more complex question than meets the eye. The magnificence and utility of full intact cord blood is that it is a cornucopia of different types of stem cells. Cord blood has MSC’s that we just described. It has HSCs, hematopoietic stem cells, that can make all the types of cells in the bone marrow, red cells, white cells, and platelets, the latter which assists with coagulation where we need it. It has neural stem cells for the brain, it has muscle stem cells, it has a wide spectrum of tissue specific stem cells. And as we just described, in the hierarchy, or to complete that discussion, you have totipotent to pluripotent to germ cell derived to any tissue type stem cells, the cord blood actually has types of stem cells that can specifically regenerate a particular tissue. So full intact core blood is very cool and very powerful. And that also contains a unique type of stem cell called the very small embryonic like stem cell, or the VSEL. And that can be another part of our discussion, because we work a lot with that. We’ve done work with other types of stem cells, but we’re particularly focused on that, because it is the pluripotent stem cell, within the cord blood. So you can imagine that full intact cord blood is this amazing cocktail of a broad spectrum of different types of stem cells everywhere from pluripotent to germ cell line derived, to N tissue type of stem cells. And the utility of banking the cells… I know those that have just delivered, their babies are often confronted with the question do I invest in saving the core pod? And I’d say if you can afford to, do it, because you just don’t know how useful they may be some time later. The biggest reason is that, especially if the young child or even an older child develops certain types of health issues, that they can even be life saving. And they will be generally beneficial, because they’re literally this cocktail of stem cells, especially for that particular person. The confusion with cord blood is that when a source of cord blood is developing that for clinical use, what they make is not fully intact cord blood with all the bells and whistles. The cord blood stem cells that are generally provided are an extract of the mesenchymal stem cells only. And the way they’re typically produced is that the mesenchymal stem cells are put in culture. And they might even put full intact cord blood in it, but the other types of stem cells don’t replicate and proliferate in the same way. So the MSCs will tend to grow to in plumes where they completely fill the base of the flask. And then that flask is shaken up. And that’s used to seed a number of other flasks. So let’s say the multiple is 10. The product of that one flask goes into 10 flasks, and moving it from one set of flasks to another is called the passive And then the cells and those 10 flask, Rohde confluence, and then each of those gets put in 10 flasks, and that’s the second passage. So whatever the other types of stem cells, that there may be in cord blood get rapidly diluted through this passaging process. So essentially, what’s being delivered is just the cord blood mesenchymal stem cells. And because they’re newborn, they have newborn length telomeres, the aging clock that’s often used in DNA. There’s another clock called DNA methylation, the epigenetic clock, which is more accurate. But both of those exist and are important. So these cells are really very young. And they will tend to make potent growth and regeneration factors. Yet, they’re MSCs and have the limitations of MSCs, they will tend to want to become particular types of tissue. And if used for that purpose, they can be great. The other issue is that they’re allogeneic. And if they are not, serendipitously, a good tissue match, they won’t tend to stay around a long time in tissue, they might last four to six weeks, they can provide regenerative stimulus in the tissue, and then that will tend to recede. So Cord blood is complicated. Fallen tech, fresh core blood that might be used for therapeutic purpose is this incredible cocktail of many types of stem cells. Yet, when we talk about the use of cord blood stem cells, in practice, it’s usually just the expanded and passage of mesenchymal stem cells.
Diva Nagula 46:49
And quickly so when other people who are going abroad, whether it’s Mexico, and or Europe, specifically athletes, they’re obtaining allogeneic cord cells.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 47:03
Typically, that might be other types of stem cells that some labs make, but that would be the
most likely.
Diva Nagula 47:09
Got it. Okay. And you briefly were mentioning V cells, which is really the crux of know what you do. So you could describe what a V cell is, you know, how you happen to have found the V cells. And then we can talk further about its utility and regeneration.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 47:31
I first learned about the very small embryonic like stem cells, which is abbreviated vsc cells in which we further shortened to V cells. So from this point, for the sake of time, I’ll just call them V cells. I first learned about them in a 600 page book on stem cells written by one of the leading pioneers in the area, who was Doctor Ratajczak, University of Kentucky in Louisville. And he’s been the leading pioneer in the basic research of this type of stem cell. And it was his chapter on cord blood, where I first learned about them, so to find the various types of stem cells that were cord blood, and he was most enamored with the V cells. And the reason he was so excited, is because he realized they were truly pluripotent, depending upon the culture environment, you put them in, they can become pancreas cells, neural cells, muscle cells, cartilage cells, or whatever type of cell they’re conditioned to become. So there was already laboratory evidence from his work and others that the V cells can make the types of cells that come from all three of the germ layers. So it’s not germ cell limited, no likelihood, they have some participation, even in the formation and evolution of the germ layers. It’s also relevant that they’re very small. The typical size of a V cell is about one to two microns. It’s basically only about as big as a bear nucleus, which is one micron plus possibly a little bit of cytoplasm. The reason that is relevant is that if they’re being used for Regenerative Medicine, to give the body cells to regenerate the tissues, the fact that they’re very small, allows them to go through the lung, and to circulate throughout the body and literally create a regenerative effect for every cell in tissue. And because they’re the person’s own cells, they are not just short termers, they can be literally turning back the aging clock of almost every in any tissue in the body.
Diva Nagula 50:15 That’s amazing.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 50:17
The point that I haven’t made yet, which was mind boggling when I learned it. And you’d almost say this is a gift from the source from which we derive, is that for unknown reasons, the V cells go into a state of hibernation or dormancy when we’re born. So unlike all the other types of the body, including all the other stem cell types, that are replicating and dividing themselves, throughout life, the V cells go to sleep. And because they’re not dividing, their telomeres are remaining very long, and they’re not aging. So no matter how old someone is, their V cells are going to be much, much younger than they are even newborn level, at almost any age. So that gives us a pluripotent cell that can regenerate any tissue of the hundreds of types of cells in the body. That’s small enough to traverse the pulmonary capillaries where other stem cells get stopped, that can literally be distributed throughout the entire body, that can give cells that have an aging clock that is often decades younger than the person themselves. And with our technology, which we have developed, published and patented away to awaken these dormant cells, when they’re given intravenously, we can also use the new type of laser signal that goes a lot more deeper through tissue, to give them a homing pathway to increase the probability that a stem cell goes where a person could most use the regenerative benefit.
Diva Nagula 52:22
And it has the differentiating point, that it’s going to last beyond the four to six weeks that the mesenchymal cells do?
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 52:32
Right. For all we know, they may last indefinitely as younger cells to literally average the age of all the other cells that throw young cells to make the tissue younger.
Diva Nagula 52:46
And since our body has these cells that are dormant, how many V cells do we have? And if we have this procedure, are we losing our V cells? In terms of volume?
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 53:02
That is a good and provocative question. And to a degree, we don’t really have the data yet to give a definitive answer. That said, in a typical procedure, we draw 60 cc’s of blood, the total circulating blood volume is about five liters. So basically, we’re taking about 1% of the blood. So that means a person could have dozens of treatments without substantially depleting the cells. Secondly, there are some who believe that the V cells, like other types of cells in the body have a homeostatic setpoint, which simply means that the body has ways to keep them at the same level. There’s already published work that shows that the V cell number stays essentially constant throughout life, whether some one is 5 or 50, or 90 years old. So in all likelihood, say their number was reduced by half, for whatever reason, then there is probably an internal mechanism where they will replicate more and completely restore themselves. We don’t have definitive data on that we haven’t done measurements, for example of someone who’s given repeated units of blood, which would remove a lot more blood and see if that affects the numbers. But in all likelihood, if they get to a certain level, there will be a trigger. And they’ll simply restore themselves to whatever their setpoint is.
Diva Nagula 54:35
So I’m going to ask you, so with this particular technology, we’re not depleting our own V cells. And when we take out 60 cc’s of blood, and we awaken the V cells through photoacoustic modulation, we’re actually we’re actually awakening and dividing and multiplying these cells? Correct?
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 55:00
That is our observation. And the process after drawing the blood is a method of separating, concentrating, and then awakening the cells with a low level laser procedure that we also know that it’s not harmful to the cells. And the typical number of cells, the reasonable ballpark is about 50 million cells. And we have observed in a situation where we could make a pure population of the cells that within a few days of getting the laser signal, a cell have enlarged to their full active size of about four to six microns, and that they’re beginning to expand themselves. And what we observe in the regenerative sense, is that we often see people showing rejuvenation effects from the session, even within the hour before. And then those effects often continue. For three months, we have a published clinical study, where we’re looking at cardiac regeneration, the effect of the other published treatments was about an 8% increase in function after six months. And our result was a 50% improvement in function in three months. And three months was the point at which the effect plateaued. So it was greater at one month, two months, three months, but that’s where it stabilized. I think in terms of what we observe, there can often be surprising and cool and amazing initial effects, even before people leave the office after the protocol. And then there can be ongoing regenerative and energy enhancement effects that occur over a number of months.
Diva Nagula 57:09
I mean, this is amazing. So I believe this is the Armenian study that you’re alluding to. And this is so important, because the procedure that’s done in comparison, where they inject stem cells, conventional stem cells, was more invasive. They have to, you know, go through the iliac vein, and then they have to thread the needle into the heart, and then they inject the stem cells, that route versus the procedure that’s done with your methodology. It’s not invasive at all, it’s literally very gentle. And you’re applying the laser onto the heart to attract the V cells, and you’re able to achieve 50% improvement in ejection fraction over three months.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 57:57 It’s a good way to go.
Diva Nagula 58:03
I mean, the effects of this downstream are amazing. I mean, you’re giving people their lives back, getting off of pharmaceuticals, and restoring functionality.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 58:16
Well, that is the hallmark of regenerative medicine, if you regenerate the tissue, its function is improved and needs less other types of support. So that is the goal. And what we haven’t mentioned yet is the effects we’ve seen on actual biological age. And probably the main benefit, and what really excites me is that for the past year and a half or so, we’ve been using the most accurate clock of biological age that exists. People know about tumors yet that clock is not particularly accurate, and has a lot of variability. There is a much more precise aging clock that involves looking at epigenetic modifications of DNA, particularly we’re a little chemical group called the methyl group, which is a carbon three hydrogens is placed on specific residues in DNA. And when we’re born, we have a particular pattern. And over time, over the years, that pattern shifts in a particular way, particularly with the loss of multiple groups at certain places, and using that much greater amount of data. A professor from UCLA and also the founder of the clock foundation named Dr. Steven Horvath has created the most accurate biological aging clock that exists that is given his name of the Horvath clock and there are others but his was the one that was landmark, and he’s the leading authority in the area. And using his epigenetic related clock of biological age at the DNA level, when we first got the testing and didn’t have before and after data, they found that if a person had one of these protocols in the previous five years, that they were typically three years younger biologically than the birthdate age. With two treatments, they were six years younger, and most amazingly, with four treatments, they were 12 years younger.
Diva Nagula 1:00:40 Wow. Reversing age.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 1:00:43
Yeah. So not just anti aging, slowing the process, but literally turning back the clock. And what we see physiologically, people revert to a younger biological age, their physical function improves to be commensurate with that.
Diva Nagula 1:01:01
And I’d love to get some clinical anecdotes, because this is something that I think a lot of listeners are interested in what this is treating how this is, we talked about the reversal of age. So before we talk about that, let’s talk about some testing that can be done for biological age. I mean, what’s the best there are several kits out there, vendors that actually have these are any recommendations that you have?
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 1:01:27
One we’ve used routinely, one is True Diagnostic, which gave us the original data. And one of their founders actually reached out to us, because he said that, when they first started seeing our results, they thought they made a mistake, because they were so far from what they expected. And when they repeated the test several times to make sure that the results were accurate. They said that our effects on reversing biological age were orders of magnitude statistically better than anything else that they’d seen.
Diva Nagula 1:01:27 Wow.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 1:01:27
So that is a test we’ve used and we also work with Muhdo the tests are a little bit different to True Diagnostic is a blood test doesn’t require much like about, I think it’s only half a cc or not even that much and then Muhdo was a saliva test. They do have a high level Oxford geneticists at their head, and I’ve had a chat with him, and it’s pretty good. So I’ve had good relationships with both companies. And they each have their attributes. And it somewhat depends on what someone’s practitioner likes to use, and what their preferences of the different features of each of those tests. And there are others that are coming up like Dr. David Sinclair, who has become a good friend is working on one that is really cost effective. And I think he’s already gathered 10s of 1000s of specimens, some to test for validity than others, actually to test to launch the actual program. So there are different tests. And I would say, those were the ones that we know the best and have the most experience with and there are others and like anything, it’s like, we’re not making a particular recommendation, like let the buyer review the information and see what fits best for them. But there are tests and the most accurate tests are the ones that are using the epigenetic DNA methylation as opposed to the tumor tests. Now, those tests often will give the telomere length. So you can get that data. And it’s really about the relative data. The purpose of the test is, what are you going to do with your diet, your lifestyle, your supplements, your the adjuncts that you do your stress reduction, meditation, and even the stellar medicine side? When you do these things, what is the effect that you see? You at least slow aging or do you even reverse it?
Diva Nagula 1:04:31
And this is important because this is different than conventional stem cell therapies, where there is not a reversal of biological age. So this particular modality of treatment not only reduces biological age, but it has a regenerative capacity. And so I’d love to hear some clinical vignettes of some of your clients and patients that you’ve seen that have come through your office, maybe not even through your office, but there’s I mean, two dozen licensees that are out there that have amazing effects with this procedure on patients. So if you could just share with us, what you’re seeing in the clinical setting?
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 1:05:11
Well, I’m only going to give one because I have to prepare for the next meeting. And this one tells a pretty compelling story. And I don’t generally like to talk about chronological ages, because I think there’s a mindset that a person can think they may lose certain abilities based on a number. So I think we need to look at the new reality of understanding of biological age. Nonetheless, this person gave me permission to share their story. So I’ll actually say his age. This 73 year old triathlete, very in tune with his body, who I believe has done 42 triathlons, who really understands his performance metrics. He did his biological age testing, and it was 67. So all the good things he was doing super healthy lifestyle, just that got him to minus six years biologically, he did three of the procedures with the V cells over a year. And that reduced his biological age to 55. So he went from minus six years biologically to minus 18 years biologically. And his performance metrics improved to be that of the younger biological age. He was very dialed in, because he’s a high performance athlete. Then what was really, really interesting is that he did a fourth treatment. And he just focused on his heart. And he had a good, strong, healthy heart if he was curious as a very high level competitive athlete, even at his birthdate age, whether that could improve his performance. And he tracked his maximum heart rate, which was, I believe, 173, which is very good for his chronological age. So there’s a formula that I’ll share. And what was amazing was that just two weeks after he did the procedure with guidance to the heart, that his maximum heart rate in competition went from 173 to 185.
Diva Nagula 1:07:50 Wow!
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 1:07:53
And that was an actual physical measurement. And based on the formula that predicted maximum heart rate is 220 minus age, that suggests that in two weeks, his heart was 12 years younger, physiologically.
Diva Nagula 1:08:08 Wow.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 1:08:09
And his cardiac physiology age was roughly half that of his chronological age.
Diva Nagula 1:08:15
That’s amazing. This is amazing, amazing technology. And I’m very fortunate to be a licensee.
And so I’m looking forward to seeing and being able to participate and sharing data.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 1:08:29
Indeed, so I actually have to get off to another meeting. But that was probably the most in depth discussion I’ve done, of looking at the actual hierarchy and the full menu of different types of stem cells.
Diva Nagula 1:08:47
Which is very important. And I want to thank you, Dr. Todd, for taking the time out to being with us. Hopefully, we’ll be able to talk more at a different date about more stories and more clinical applications and success stories. So thank you so much.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys 1:09:01 Thank you. It was a pleasure.